Just the energy of the stadium was amazing.
The Eagles were dominating.
I remember how I felt. I remember how good of a time we had. I remember a lot of that night.
Once we parked the car, walked up to the stadium, we could just hear the roar of the crowd.
We were walking up the steps and the national anthem started.
I saw Travis just stop dead in his tracks, take his hat off.
It was a great moment to be with him here, listening to the national anthem,
about to see a great Eagles football game, but it was also a heavier moment
because I knew what lied in store for Travis.
It put things into perspective that Travis was about to go back overseas to Iraq.
We stayed at the very end of the game, so there was just thousands of people
filing out of our section.
When we got to the top of the stairs, I jokingly put my hand on Travis's shoulder
and said, hey, Travis, let me push you down these stairs,
and hopefully you'll break an ankle, and that way you won't have to deploy.
You know, he got serious, and he said, Dave, I've been training. I'm prepared to go.
If I don't go, then somebody who's less experienced is going to have to go on my place.
If not me, then who?
Travis was my younger brother by 15 months, but even though I was the older sister,
I really was the younger sibling. I looked up to Travis in many different ways.
He always set the example.
On April 29th, 2007, while fighting to rescue his fellow Marines from danger,
Travis was killed by a sniper.
He was courageously pulling to safety two of his wounded teammates,
and for his actions that day, he was awarded the Silver Star.
Brotherhood, sacrifice, love of country.
It is my fervent prayer that we may honor the memory of the fallen
by living out those ideals every day of our lives.
It was a couple days after Travis was killed, and we opened up our house to the press.
And sitting on that couch was a reporter from the Inquirer.
Dave shared with him that story of if not me, then who.
It was a couple hours later, my dad pulled my mom and I into his bedroom,
and he said, you know, from this moment forward,
we move forward making sure that we do the right thing for Travis.
This is what it's all about, and we move forward making sure we live by that idea.
Coming up, you know, I didn't feel like this neighborhood wasn't safe.
It was just, you know, people that didn't have a lot.
And now I look back and, you know, I don't know how safe it is now,
but still looks like not a lot of development in the community.
Still looks like, you know, a bunch of hardworking people that still don't have a lot.
I distinctly remember kind of a life-changing moment where I had a friend almost right here on this corner.
He kind of got involved in drugs, and he was killed.
I just decided I wanted to work harder and, you know, go and do something.
Do something different with my life.
I'm assuming this was 1636.
1634 would have been right here.
My mom and myself and sister, we live with my grandmother and grandfather,
and it was a three-story home.
It was the one place where, you know, we at least felt safe.
The story not far from here, one of my cousins and I,
I remember we were there shoplifting 10 years old, and we got caught.
And the owner called our parents, and I remember just being on punishment for the entire summer.
His punishment wasn't as hard as mine.
You know, he ended up continuing down a life of crime, and I ended up going in another direction.
I initially thought about going into the Marines after high school.
The Marine Corps, you know, honor, courage, and commitment, you know,
when you think about those values and you live them on the daily basis,
they cannot help but be ingrained into your system.
You think about the people that are highly dependent on you, that are surrounding you.
You know, the platoon that you are a part of, the men and women that you serve with,
you know, it's about not letting them down.
It provided a lot of opportunity and helped establish a foundation for me,
and in short, Marines changed my life.
My greatest inspiration is my mother by far.
Well, her thing was education, you know, would open doors that ignorance would keep closed.
She would always tell me that education would open doors that ignorance would keep closed.
So she was really, really adamant about getting a good education.
And she worked three jobs to send me to a Catholic school
because she thought that education was better than the public school
that was in the neighborhood that I grew up in.
She taught me to, you know, walk past the things that were bad in the neighborhood
that we grew up in, in the neighborhood I lived in,
and really start to get exposure to other things.
And education brought those opportunities to me.
So I'm fortunate to have had a mother that has had such an impact on my life like that.
Which is why I'm inspired and motivated to give back to individuals like all of you.
Where did you get out of that?
Yo, you're a pretty courageous person.
You persevered.
Yeah?
Yeah, you're a leader in your own right.
I say, if not me, then who as it relates to communities like this and to actually speak
to our at-risk youth like myself, you know, to help them shape that character.
I feel like I'm thriving on a daily basis because I do wake up with a purpose.
I think about Keith Palmer, I think about, you know, that dash between the time I was
born and the time I will die and what will people say, how did I live?
I want to be a man of character, a man of integrity, and when I think about character
and the person Keith Palmer is, that's how I frame it up and that's what I want to be
known for.
So if each of you can commit to wake up every morning to look at yourself in the mirror
and to say, you know what, today I'm going to have an if not me then who moment, that
I challenge myself to be big in something little.
When my brother Travis, he was very much big in the little things and that helped him
to be big in the big things when it really counted.
And if you're applying this idea of being big in the little things every day, when that
big challenge hits you, you're going to be able to face it head on.
I didn't personally know Travis Manion, but when I heard the story and how he lived, honestly
I'm inspired.
When Travis spoke those five words at the top of the stairs, I knew that they were
power for words, learning the ideals of service and sacrifice starts with an organization
like the Travis Manion Foundation, and I know they're fully committed to spreading those
ideals all across the country.
If not me then who movement, it's bigger than any one individual, thousands of veterans
and families of the fallen have come together to redefine what it means to live a life of
this character and to think that those five words were the start of it all, were the start
of this movement that he created.
It's a pretty incredible legacy for one person to live.
